Timer repair for Kevin's Apex washer

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DAVID!

That is FANTASTIC WORK! Now we can save all our timer motors. Amazing you found so many breaks in a spool locked inside a can never designed to be moved or touched! It has to be just plain age on the wire!

Now the cam with spring gear that you freed up, did it unwind when you took apart the escapement? If so it has to be clocked back a notch to put tension back on the spring otherwise the escapement won't work right.

jon
 
Now THAT"s just F*@#ing AMAZING! restoration..

Before you wrap it up ...PLEASE, PLEASE include where you got the

1. gram?? scale. and

2. who your wire supplier was as you couldn't have had that in storage before you began..

3. and OH, what model battery nut driver are you using?

WOW!! now I can use the techinique on some old wall clocks that I have...
Thanks for posting!
 
Jon

I wondered about all those breaks myself. It's a real head scratcher. All I can say for certain is that it didn't break while I was unrolling it. The broken ends would just slip off the spool without even the slightest hint of a tug. While trying to find a way around the dead timer motor problem, I managed to find a local outfit that had a timer assembly that used the very same motor. They wanted eighty dollars for it, but before I would even consider it I asked them to put a meter on the motor leads and see if it was good. It wasn't. Somehow, while just sitting in its box on the parts shelf for the last few decades it developed an open. So I guess this is more common than I would have thought.

As far as the escapement goes, that little spring you mentioned definitely unwound when I opened it up. Fortunately, it made enough noise when it let loose that I knew something important had just happened, so I went looking for the cause. It wasn't too hard to find, or correct for that matter. The escapement is reassembled at this point, and even though the motor wasn't working, I was able to drive the input gears with a very small flat tip screw driver and confirm that everything is working as it should. They really are clever little devices, and they're kind of fun to watch.
 
David (recyclewasher)

The scale used here is intended for reloading ammunition, so it's calibrated in grains. But any sensitive and accurate scale would work fine. In this case, the weight of the old wire and the empty spool was 576.6 grains, and the weight of the spool loaded with new wire was 576.7 grains. Close enough.

 

As for the wire, believe it or not, my dad had that big spool of wire sitting on a shelf in his bedroom.(that's just how he is) He retired from the Department of Water and Power here in Los Angeles, and the DWP does almost all of their own maintenance, including rewinding electrical solenoids and motor windings. They have machines that turn the spools that the wire is being fed onto, and since they can't have the wire run out before the spool is fully loaded, once the spools that are supplying the new wire get below a certain point, they're  set aside for scrap or small projects. My dad bought one and brought it home years ago. I just got lucky in that it turned out to be the exact same wire that I needed for this little job. The label on the end of the spool identifies it as number 39 wire, which should be .0035 inches in diameter, but the wire actually measured out to .0041 inches. I'm going to guess that the difference is the thickness of the varnish applied to the wire.

 

The nut drivers belonged to my grandfather who was a TV and radio repairman in the fifties and sixties. They came in a small set and were made by Xcelite. They've been very handy over the years. Do you by any chance have the same set?
 
KARMA

D-Jones...
thanks for explaining about the grains-ammunition use for the scale, I'll have to check if the one my Dad used (for mixing chemicals when processing 35mm film- photography is as sensitive- was in grams though). Growing up as a teenager we just bought the ammo in boxes from the defence force/police when we shared range practice sessions on the Oil companys camps. Making one's own ammo is a no-no here.

wire- thanks for the diameter info THAT narrows it down alot when surfing..

Xcelite-I know the brand good- made in USA- I have the small manual driver kit (got that from my maternal grandfather who managed an electric power company and serviced tube radios/tube tv's as a hobby), but the power drills are electric large Milwaukee dual hammers (so i'll have to search for battery powered one)

really nice post-lots of applications I can use the info on plus washer timers :),
THANKS
 
timer motor repair

You could go into business repairing timer motors for all of us on here. My bendix timer motor is bad. Just a thought. Thanks, Don
 
Totally amazed!

WOW ... with this type of progress, I sure hope Kevin can get that super cool machine up and running! Hats off to David for your timer efforts!
 
Xcelite

My main tool set is the Maytag tool roll that was made by Xcelite. Now that the tool rolls and shanks/bits are not sold thru Maytag anymore (thanks again Whirlpool!), I buy replacement items directly thru Xcelite...

RCD
 
Timer Motor Rewinding

WOW David that was a very impressive repair. It is interesting to me that we are seeing so many of that style timer motor failing these days. Back 30+ years ago we almost never saw these early black motors fail, it must be that their was some deterioration of the motor wire insulation that time is taking its toll on. The thing that I have been doing when I see these black timer motors fail is to mount the next generation silver motor on the escapement, these newer motors were a proper replacement and were used all through the 1960s and into the 70s and are still around.

 

On today's machines with the better quality control and better manufacturing processes I suspect that things like this will not fail after 60 years nearly so often, BUT the electronics will be the parts that fail in today's machines over time and they may or may not be so possible to fix, Time Will Tell, John.
 
For those looking for this type of wire...years ago I was building a TV set and needed some very fine, very specific gauge wire like this to wind my IF coils. A local motor shop was more than happy to sell me a few small spools of exactly what I needed, but I had to try a few places first. Seems motor re-winding, even for specialized shops, is one more thing that's gotten to be "too much trouble" and is outsourced. -Cory
 
Sorry I took so long to finish this up,but here goes.

The odd looking flat pieces of metal that tied the fine coil wire to the large power leads were going to be too difficult and risky to use again. They originally sat in slots in the black plastic block with a short piece of wire lead crammed into the hole below them, then they were sealed in place by melting the black plastic and spreading it over the top of the slot. You can see the way they were installed in reply 10 if you’re curious. That sort of thing seldom works more than once, and I was really worried about breaking the little wire leads. So I did this instead. It’s not pretty but it works, and with any luck, nobody will ever have a reason to be in there again. “Fingers crossed”

d-jones++2-2-2013-03-20-18.jpg
 

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